Vatican Open to a Lutheran Ordinariate
October 30, 2012 13 Comments
The Vatican is open to creating an ecclesial jurisdiction for Lutherans who wish to join the Roman Catholic Church but preserve aspects of their liturgical and ecclesial patrimony, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has said. In an interview with Zenit published on 24 Oct 2012, Cardinal Kurt Koch said the Vatican would entertain creating a structure similar to the Anglican Ordinariate for Lutherans.
Such a structure was possible due to a convergence of beliefs on certain doctrinal issues, Cardinal Koch said, as progress had been made in the ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans in Germany.
He noted that the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification signed in August of 1999 had been a “great step forward in the ecumenical dialogue with Lutherans,” and the current talks were centered round discussing the “ecclesiological consequences” of the declaration.
However, “evangelicals have another understanding of the Church” as compared to Catholics. “It is not enough mutually to recognize one another as a Church. What is needed is a serious theological dialogue on what constitutes the essence of the Church.”
Asked if the Vatican would offer Lutherans an option akin to Anglicanorum coetibus, Cardinal Koch said this was possible. However he stated he wanted to make it clear that the Anglican Ordinariate “not an initiative of Rome, but came from the Anglican Church.”
“The Holy Father sought a solution” to this request for union from Anglicans and subsequently found a “broad solution” where Anglicans “ecclesial and liturgical traditions were taken into ample consideration. If similar desires are expressed by the Lutherans, then we will have to reflect on them. However, the initiative is up to the Lutherans,” Cardinal Koch said.
The Vatican has created three personal ordinariates over the past two years for former Anglicans: the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for England and Wales, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter for North America, and the Personal Ordinariate of the Southern Cross for Australia. Approximately 100 former Anglican clergy and 8 former Anglican bishops have been received and re-ordained to serve the congregations, whose members number approximately 4000.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
IF Rome ever goes down this road and IF Rome ever has Lutheran bishops, superintendents, and pastors sign the RC CCC, everyone should demand they put their initials next to ever section of the CCC that covers indulgences, super-treasury of merits, and purgatory! Any “Lutheran” who so does was not a Lutheran. It is one thing for the rather theologically ambiguous traditionalist High Church Anglo-Catholic Anglicans to do this (as even they can’t agree on the loci of their systematic theology), but any Lutheran worth his or her salt has the 95 theses, Luther’s writings, the monumental Augsburg Confession, Luther’s Large and Small Catechisms, the massive Formula of Concord, and a plethora of other 16th Century Lutheran doctrinal material that create a most detailed systematic theology.
Well, the Scandinavian and Baltic State Churches are much more free toward Lutheran doctrines that their German counterpart, and experienced a (small “c) catholic awakening in the XIXth Century.
The result is that they look like the Episcopal Church USA very much, with a biblically orthodox minority of high church (small “c”) catholics and low church evangelicals being oppressed by a liberal majority (with catholic trappings)… and also with lesbian archbishopesses!
In Sweden, the CofS Bishops may have retained apostolic succession (but with the bishopesses, the point is now moot) and their liturgy is basically the Tridentine Mass in Swedish.
Many former Lutheran pastors are now Catholic Priests in Scandinavia and Germany, included many married men.
The first opening toward married men being priested in the Latin Church was made by Pius XII (yes!) in the 50′s when the Lutheran Churches in Germany entered in a covenant with the Reformed ones.
+ PAX et BONUM
Whatever else the now disestablished Church of Sweden may be, it is still a Church of the Augsburg Confession (to use the name the great Lutheran Carl Piepkorn used to call his Church). It doesn’t lack for a systematic foundational dogmatic theology derived in the 16th Century; whether it still believes its roots or practices them is an entirely different matter.
Go Michael! Indeed for true “Reformational” Lutheran’s, the Augsburg Confession, etc. still stands! Simply NO “Roman” Catholicism! And those so-called “Lutherans” that want Rome, are simply not, or no longer Lutherans! And in reality, it is Rome that is really Gospel “invalid”! Surely the whole doctrine of the Treasury of Merit, etc. is foreign to the NT, and especially the Pauline Gospel! Grave error here, which simply proves the theological errors of the Roman Papacy! Dr. Luther, the first living Father of the Reformation, simply cleaned biblical & theological clock here!
The Lutheran Mass of the Church of Sweden is not the tridentine rite in Swedish..it is stripped of offertory, intercession of Saints and prayer for the deas and sacrifice. The Apostolic succession was lost in the 16th century, and Swedish orders are as invalid as Anglican.Even Pusey doubted the validity of Swedish Orders.
If Luther or Melanchthon attended the average modern New Order RC liturgy in USA today, I suspect they’d be hard pressed to realize they were in a RC Church. Talk about change.
They’d be wondering where did the beautiful music go, the statuary, the architecture, the incense, the communion rail, the beautiful vestments, all the lit candles, the liturgy in Latin, the priest with his back leading, communion in one kind, the few communicants, people praying their vernacular devotionals while the mass was being said in a foreign language, and much more. I’m sure they’d be surprised by female eucharistic ministers, communion in both kind, the revised lectionary, the modernized calendar, the priest facing, English, folk music, the terrible translation of the readings (from the pathetic New American Bible), the slovenly attire, the everyone going to communion without confession, etc, Would they be in shock as to what all they’d been arguing with Rome about regarding liturgics in the 16th Century?
If the New Order Liturgy has an Offertory, at least one even potentially theologically like that of the Tridentine Liturgy, then I haven’t ever seen it.
Hello Father Stephen
I wrote this on Deborah’s site
Hello Deborah , interesting comments. You dont seem to understand the workd ” Unity”, this means that two or three dominations worship in one Church. You dont cease to be what you were, but you are united in Christ. You have abonened the Anglican Church and became a Roman Catholic. That is not unity, that is one denomination being absorped by the other. Father Smuts talked about a Lutheran Ordinariate, that will be the same story, once Lutherans joins, they become Roman Catholics even though they are allowed to do their Luthern thingy, but they cease to be Lutherans. But if you are happy , well that is fine with me indeed. O yes , there is no further news from the TAC , see http://www.revdedbakkeropr.blogspot.com
Have a good day
Communion with the Bishop or Rome is the only way. Otherwise, there is only schism. Granted, the Holy Father is generous, and people like you are angry over his generosity. Disagreements have no place in heaven, and only St. Peter has the keys to that Kingdom.
Death to schism! Those not in communion with the Pope, convert -now- and have a nice day.
Now, I’m not at all enthusiastic about “Lutheran Ordinariates” because I’ve always suspected their theology to have been the cause of many troubles. Luther was a rebel, and to have a Lutheran Ordinariate makes as much sense as a “Satanist Ordinariate” using the theology of Anton LaVey and their “patrimony” whatever that is.
The heritage of Cranmer is as Reformed.. read his articles and study the theolgy behind his Prayer Books. He did exactly the same as Luther…. denied the authority of the Pope,cast out the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, intercession of Saints, prayers for the dead etc.
Only in the nineteenth century did Anglo-Catholicism arrrive, taking on our ritual and doctrines.
The Anglo catholic liturgical patrimony is a hotch potch of Cranmer and the Roman missal!
I think Anglicanism can be salvaged, though… I have faith that Blessed John Henry Newman and those who follow his footsteps can undo Cranmer’s damage.
And I have faith in the Ordinariates, because the Pope wants them to succeed, I stand with him, and so I want the Ordinariates to succeed. Some will undoubtedly denounce them as a “puppet” of Rome, but who hasn’t said the same among the Orthodox about Eastern-Rite Catholics?
As for Lutherans… I have yet to find an analogue to Blessed J.H.Newman from among them.
I asked a friend of mine – a former Lutheran pastor, now Catholic – about this very possibility last year, I think; and he replied that, unlike Anglicans, he felt there was no distinctive Lutheran liturgical patrimony to bring into full communion, since the Lutheran divine service is basically Mass stripped of what Luther rejected, and hence if once one comes to accept those rejected doctrines and practices, then one simply returns to the Western Church from which Luther broke. I myself would suggest, however, that if ever “groups of Lutherans” convert as a body desirous of ongoing fellowship as part of the larger whole, then their worship would no doubt be marked by the very great riches of their musical and choral tradition, which to me would be the Lutheran patrimony suitable to bring into Catholic unity.
Bach would be a welcome addition to the Catholic Church. (From what I’ve heard, the Catholic Church had been using his musical settings at times.)